) Drafts 5.4 is here today, and while it feels like it was just yesterday when it was released Greg has found numerous ways to improve things! Here’s a quick overview of all the features added:

Shortcuts Support

Shortcuts Action in Drafts

With the release of Shortcuts and it replacing Workflow we’ve got a fair few actions to update - thankfully the Shortcuts actions work the same way as Workflow ones did, so you can easily replace them. If you have an older device which Shortcuts doesn’t support but Drafts does then you can keep using Workflow though. There’s documentation on running Shortcuts in Drafts too.

Shortcuts

Boy this is getting confusing! In iOS 12 every app has the option of telling Siri what you’ve been doing (stored locally on your device for privacy and security reasons), and these can then be suggested to you. This also means we can use these in the Shortcuts app as part of a longer chain of things - or individually (best set up via Settings > Siri & Search to avoid cluttering your Shortcuts app with potentially hundreds of one action automations!), via Siri or through typing in the search. We can use these to capture the clipboard, launch dictation, or view a specific draft which is ideal for reference material. Inside of Drafts you can add specific Drafts to Siri, and to add a Workspace.

Separators in Action Groups

We can now add separators in action groups - these are what they sound like, little dividers which help you split up your actions. It’s a small visual indication, but a big help when you have a longer list of actions - or many which are similar.

Don't Sleep While Working

As part of a script step you can now tell your device you don’t want it to autosleep using app.isIdleDisabled - I’ve built this into some of my blogging actions so when I start a new post my device remains awake but when I publish it goes back to normal :)

Dropbox API

One thing Shortcuts no longer does is integration with Dropbox, thankfully Drafts has come to my rescue by adding the Dropbox API! Details in the Scripting Reference. Look for ready to use example actions, like “Create on Dropbox Paper” in the Action Directory. I’ve created several actions which save files in multiple formats to specific directories in Dropbox and copy the folder URL back to my clipboard which is great for when I’m working on things things I am sharing with others! This alone makes Drafts worth the subscription price for me :)

Wordpress Integration

I didn’t think anything would make me consider going back to Wordpress, but this nearly did! Drafts now has native integration which is quite simply wonderful.

Google Drive Enhancements

You can now create fully styled documents and PDFs through the Upload option when combined with the HTML Preview actions - and much more. Text uploads also support appending or prepending, and you can also upload Markdown and HTML.

Other

  • There's a nice new light grey theme which I'm using for "bright sunlight" days.
  • You can easily copy the UUID or the text of a Draft to the clipboard through the button, as well as a link to a Draft.
  • There's a lot of tweaks for better performance!

You can see the full, official, release notes here.
You can get Drafts 5 on the App Store.